And while there’s no substitute for a real Mac, sometimes we encounter folks who have real Macs but want to turn their older PCs into Macs too.

That’s the story behind this post. Turning an Asus VX2S Lamborghini Laptop from a Windows or Linux machine into a full-blown Apple Hackintosh.

A special-edition, and much sought-after laptop, the Asus Lamborghini VX2S laptop was designed in collbaoration with Lamborghini, and comes with Lamborghini-styled special touches like a leather palmrest and Lamborghini Yellow color scheme.

It isn’t just looks either. The Asus VX2S was a highly-specced machine in 2007 when it first debuted. With an Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7400 running at 2.116 Ghz and a NVidia GeForce Go7700 VX with 512MB, it isn’t a slouch today.

So when a friend asked us to see if we could turn his Lamborghini special edition Asus into a Mac, we couldn’t say no.

Previous Form

Ever since Apple announced it had been working on a X86 versions of its software, Apple fans and hackers have sought to turn any kind of compatible PC into a Mac.

Back in 2008, Bryce Thomas wrote this comprehensive how-to guide after getting OS X 10.5.1 running on his own Asus VX2S. But why install 10.5.1 on a computer when the latest version of OS X is 10.7.2?

What You’ll Need

You’re going to need several things to make this installation work.

• A real Mac, running 10.6.x or greater (ideally 10.7.2 with App Store)
• A USB hard drive caddy
• A real, legal copy of 10.7  - (Please, buy a real copy of Lion, either downloaded from the Mac App Store, or on a USB installer from your local Apple Store)
• An 8GB USB pen drive
• Unibeast (From tonymacX86)
• Multibeast (From tonymacX86)
• A lot of time and patience

Step One And Two

Since this part of the process is the same as for any other laptop-based Unibeast installation, there’s no point rewriting it here.

So, head on over to TonyMacX86.blogspot.com and follow steps one and two there…

Step Three

At this point you’ve got a USB drive with a copy of Unibeast-prepared OS X 10.7 on it, but if you try and boot from this in the VX2S you’ll get the dreaded “Still Waiting For Root Device” error.

So, we’ve got to make the USB drive safe to use in our VX2S, by setting the UseKernelCache flag to YES. But we also have to add some additional support and drivers to enable our Unibeast drive to boot properly.

Rather than break out the terminal, we can do both with the fantastic Multibeast post-installation tool.  And yes, while it is designed to be used post installation, in this case, we’ve got to use it before installation.

Open up Multibeast, and follow through the instructions, making sure you choose the USB drive as your install location and NOT your Mac hard drive!

Then make sure you add the appropriate installation options:

Step Four

Once it’s installed, go ahead, and safely eject your USB disk. Then put it into your ASUS VX2S and turn it on, holding down ESC to select the USB disk as the boot drive.

When you see the splash screen for Unibeast, type the following options before it times out:

-v -F

Step Five

If all goes to plan, you should see the VX2S boot into OS X 10.7.x, complete with graphics acceleration and full Ethernet support.

Go ahead, and install OS X 10.7.x on your computer hard drive (formatting the drive as a Mac Extended Volume with a GUID partition scheme if you need to first).

Wait for the installation to finish, then shut down your computer.

Step Six

We’re nearly there, but if we try to boot the newly installed OS on our VX2S, it won’t have any of the extra drivers installed yet.

To remedy that situation, pull the hard disk out of your VX2S, and pop it into your USB drive caddy. Then plug the drive into your real Mac.

You then need to re-run Multibeast from your Mac, ensuring that you choose the VX2S’ hard drive as the installation destination.  You should use exactly the same choices as you did last time, but this time add the Chameleon bootloader to ensure the hard-drive is properly prepared for booting. If you don’t add this, the drive just won’t boot without an external bootloader.

Step Seven

Once Multibeast has installed everything it needs to, eject the drive, and put it back inside the VX2S.

Close up the drive bay, plug in an Ethernet cable, and turn on!

With any luck, you’ll then see the opening startup screen asking you to register Mac OSX. Proceed as normal, and enjoy your Lamorghini Hackintosh!

Note: In some situations, we’ve noticed that the computer complains about a lack of keyboard or mouse. If yours does, make sure you install the PS2 emulators from the installation package.

What doesn’t work (yet)

As with any Hackintosh, there are some things we haven’t got working officially yet:

• Sleep mode: in order to stop your computer going to sleep, ensure the energy savings preferences have the “never sleep” option set.
• Wifi: For some reason, no-one has created a WiFi driver for the VX2S’s native wifi card. The usual solution is to buy a compatible MiniPCIExpress card to replace the one that comes with the laptop – or use an external USB dongle.
• Multitouch: Isn’t working, but that’s hardly surprising.
• Built-in Camera: We’re sure this is fixable, but its owner is happy without a working webcam since he uses the laptop for development work.

If you’ve been working on a solution, or have suggestions for any of the parts we haven’t got round to fixing yet, please let us know and we’ll give it a go.

Oh, and finally, a disclaimer:

The above post is for educational purposes only. No support is implied or given. And please, don’t steal Mac OS X.

Finally, thanks to TonyMacX86.blogspot.com. Without this excellent site, we’d not have put together the pieces to make this installation possible.

But we have such access on our desktops for decades now. And during that time, the pendulum oscillated with increasing frequency back and forth between thin and fat clients. Big iron to Pentiums to iPhones in just a few decades. But in putting so much power literally at our fingertips, Apple, Google, and others have shifted the pendulum’s bearing.

Here’s five reasons for rich mobile clients:

1. The platform is solid but your connection isn’t.



Whether you live in San Francisco or rural Yorkshire, mobile network speeds can be an issue. Sure, Google and Samsung are rolling out devices that can support a 4G connection, WiMAX is in the pipe, and you can get a WiFi connection with your $5.00 cup of coffee. But network speed will continue to be an issue versus processing power for one simple fact: the stock market. Any company big enough to make any difference in the realm of mobile networking will almost certain be public and therefore have a quarterly and yearly targets to meet to drive their stock position. This unfortunate fact means that, even in this “age of austerity,” the money we part with to have the next new gadget in our pocket is more fluid than the millions or billions required to significantly advance mobile networking. 


2. The “Age of Austerity.”



Difficult economic times press all of us. But for companies hoping to be first in line for the economic recovery, an untapped resource lies conveniently in your pocket. While a virtual server from superior hosting companies like Rackspace is still decidedly cheap, the tech sector is still defined by the axiom “go big or go home.” So to succeed, we often need a large audience. In the Dot Com boom, that meant web farms. In the Age of the App, smart companies choose to leverage the free computing power of a mobile device in lieu of an additional 1000 web servers. If the capability already exists, why should you pay for it?


3. Mobile is beyond bifurcation.



Shopping for smartphones makes the point abundantly clear: there’s no shortage of players. Further, “mobile” goes well beyond just phones as we all queue up for the latest tablets. Traditionally, evidence of variety like this has been used as an argument for centralizing control and processing in a single code base in a web farm. After all, it has been a successful strategy during the browser wars. But mobile goes well beyond idiosyncratic CSS handling or plug-in availability. RIM and Apple have profound differences in the way they approach mobile computing with legions of devotees on all sides. Even fundamental elements like a keyboard, how well it works, and how comfortable the user is going to be using it play a critical role in how mobile apps should be designed. Further, all of the mobile platforms are providing a wealth of specialized features not only to end users but also developers in an attempt to woo them to develop for their platform. This fact extends not from ubiquitous app stores but down to the nitty gritty way that simple messages will be delivered to each device. All that capability boils down to one simple question: would you rather pay developers to reinvent the wheel again or to deliver functionality? Leverage the platforms and keep any server functionality as thin as possible. Let the user tell you what they want, how they want to interact, and you’ll create devotion.


4. Your competition has changed.



Apps do not compete only within their market categories and segments today. They compete for attention. In the mobile platform, Angry Birds is just a click away. Apps must not only go further to help users get things done faster, but they must elegantly fit within the user’s ecosystem of choice. Personal mobile users especially choose a mobile platform because they love it. iPhone users like swiping. Blackberry users love the speed of their keyboards. Android users love their Google integration. Each of these platforms brings its own capabilities and specialities and user predispositions. Respecting these leads to apps tailored like a fine suit, apps that enchant, apps that sell. Rejecting it leads to banality and the bottom of the app store popularity chart.


5. Money, money, money.



If the spectacular VC investment and initial stumble of Color is any lesson to us, it screams about the value of nimble adjustments and the value of keeping risk low until the model has proven it’s ready to expand. Large capital investments easily become an albatross. The more money companies throw at web farms, the more every solution looks like it needs a web site. The more servers running in house, the more staff are required to keep them ticking over, updated, and healthy. Apple make take 30% of sales, but is 30% that companies need not invest in hosting, infrastructure, and staff. How many days can you employ an IT worker for 0.30 pence? Google, Amazon, and Apple already have the capability and are charging almost nothing for it. Use it.


The next economic boom will almost certainly involve apps. Computing, especially mobile, isn’t about techies, geeks, or even devotees. It’s about everyone – everyone’s attention, everyone’s connection, everyone’s preferences, and everyone’s money. Tomorrow’s success story will put a rich app in everyone’s hands.

And while I cut my Bungie gaming teeth on the classic Marathon trilogy back in the days before Microsoft had even cooked up the idea of the XBox, I leave most of the frag fest action to my beloved. 

Back in September I got Kate the latest and last chapter in the Halo franchise for her birthday. Called Halo Reach, it gives a prequel to the ealier Halo games and gives you an idea of what happened just before the original Halo game, launched in 2001, was set. 

Having played her way through all the other Halo games, Kate was pretty excited to get her Halo Reach a day early via Amazon Prime. But since them it’s been downhill all the way. 

We’ve seen random freezes, and the annoying disc read error which seems to be affecting more than just a few XBox 360 customers from the older Pro models through to a small number of Xbox 360 elites (our console) and even Xbox 360 slims. 

After a few calls to Microsoft’s XBox 360 helpline, Kate still hadn’t got a resolution. She’d been told to apply patches, wipe the Xbox 360′s cache and even double-check for any defects to the disc. 

And while the game disc itself is only a few weeks old and pristine, we’re still getting the horrid disc read errors. It even happens when you install the game on the hard-drive and try to play off it there. 

So, today I decided to have a go. What follows is the FIFTY minute call I had with a Microsoft representative. You’ll note through the call that we point out we’ve tried the disc in other Xbox 360s (without any issues) as well as doing everything else suggested. 

But still, Microsoft appears reluctant to admit that any of its own hardware is at fault.  Our choice? An exchange of the disc under warranty, or pay for an expensive repair. 

So we’ll take the disc exchange and hope that it is miraculously solved. Failing that, we’ll sell the Xbox and go for its main rival – the Playstation 3. 

Join AllCarsElectric’s lead editor and host of Trasnport Evolved and ThisWeekInEnergy, Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield at the 2010 Bridgestone Eco-Rally on Wednesday 7th July 2010. 

The Bridgestone Eco-Rally aims to showcase all the latest in low and zero emission vehicle technology in a road-rally from Brighton’s seafront to London’s Hyde Park.

On arriving at the finish line each car will join the UK’s largest sustainable transport exhibition, free to attend, at the Royal Albert Memorial.

Nikki Will be driving from Brighton to London alongside other eco-friendly drivers including Lisa Rogers, Robert Llewellyn, Kevin McCloud and Quinten Wilson.

The rally kicks off in Brighton and ends up at Hyde park. Come along, say hello and support green transport!

For more information on the Eco-Rally, please head to www.eco-rally.org. 

Why did we want this? well, SSDs are incredibly fast. They don’t need to spend lots of time searching for information on a disc in the way that the traditional magnetic drive does. They also use less energy and are supposedly more robust.  SSDs have a reputation for speeding up boot time and making a computer feel a lot faster overall. Our aim in this case was to insert the 48GB SolidGo into the expresscard slot on Kate’s 15 inch unibody MacBook Pro, turning her machine into a three-disc operation. (a 500GB BlueScorpio WD magnetic drive, the Mac ‘superdrive’, and the expresscard SSD). The solution would enable her to have fast boot times, increased storage, and a portable data device without opening up the MacBook Pro and installing an Optibay second disc caddy. Obviously, the Optibay installation would void the MBP warranty, and leave us with no DVD drive. 

The aforementioned SSD was duly brought. And Kate started using it. Initial reports were good. The Filemate SolidGo booted just fine, using the quite SATA bus to put data where she needed it in a hurry. It seemed responsive and applications booted in a flash. But then came the problems. 

After a week or so, the drive failed. “It just stopped working” Kate said. She had to do a single-finger salute (the Mac equivalent of the three-fingered salute most windows users have done at some point in their lives) – and got the disc recognised as an unformatted one. All the data was lost and despite various data recovery attempts, we reformatted the disc and started again. All was well…

….until a few weeks later. The drive failed AGAIN. We skipped the data recovery and just reformatted; a virgin 48GB of space onto which Kate installed OS 10.6  By this point, she was keeping a backup of all of her important X-code data and programs in progress on the main drive (and on our time-machine server back at littleCollie). 

Fast-forward to yesterday. Kate came back from a client site with a heavy face. On the train back from her client her MacBookPro simply froze. She had to give it the one-finger salute and boot off the internal hard disc. 

When we looked at it that evening it was bad news. 

It was obviously not going to let us see what was on that disc. But according to our last two experiences of this drive going south it wasn’t uncommon. We soldiered on. 

After trying various disc recovery programs (none of which  wanted to recognise that something was there but which certainly wouldn’t do anything about it) we went to Disc Utility. 

This is where things really got screwy. See, it’s a 48GB drive. So that means you expect to see a 48GB drive waiting to be formated, right?  This clearly wasn’t the case.

The drive popped up in Disc Utility quite happily, but was recognised as a 4.29GB JM Loader 001. That looks like some form of firmware portion of the disc to me. 

So we played around for a while. Tried to erase. No joy. Tried first aid. No joy there either, because there wasn’t a recognisable partition on there. We even plugged it into the 17 inch MacBook Pro I have as a spare studio machine. Nada. The same problem.

Funnily enough, when plugging it in via USB (the FileMate SolidGo 48GB has a mini USB connector so you can mount the drive without it being in an expresscard slot) the drive only showed up as a 2GB drive. Curiouser and curiouser.

So, back to the MacBook pro.

Initialisation was attempted in the 17 inch – and this is what happened:

 While it looked as if it was going to format the drive the whole thing hung. And that’s where this picture was snapped. 

So there you have it. A dead SSD. And, according to my research, Kate isn’t the first Mac or PC user by far to have this issue. 

The Expresscard SSD did get really hot. And yes, I suspect it’s overheated. But it’s time this issue is addressed. Wintec, what’s going on?

Sincerely, 

Kate and Nikki. 

littleCollie.

It’s a simple idea, really.  Just email yourself.  When I want to create a To-Do item, I fire of a quick email to myself, putting TO DO: in the subject line.  You can forward or attach any needed files or information that you will need to get the job done.

Next, create a filter.  I like using the Gmail stars and labels, so I created a filter that stars my incoming TO-DO items.  While Gmail is perfect for letting your Inbox flow automatically, the label available just on the left is perfect for keeping on top of tasks.

Although I use this for my To-Do items, the same idea would work for your grocery shopping or other details you need to remember.

Electric vehicles are a bit of a hobby for me and a passion for my partner, Nikki.  If you are interested in electric or green transport, I highly recommend her blog http://www.aminorjourney.com.

I have been a big fan of TweetDeck for some time now. Their Adobe Air UI for Twitter has been quite useful, especially in its ability to segment your followers into groups. But today’s update was a perfect example of how not to treat your users.

The Problem

TweetDeck, like most other rich internet applications built on Adobe Air, makes use of automatic updates, a fantastic way to keep your user base on the most recent version. Much to my delight, TweetDeck not only incorporates them but I was ready and willing to upgrade when notified. But what’s in this version? What will it do? Will it be full of new features or just incorporate more advertising? What’s in it for me?

In TweetDeck’s case, they pushed a Blink-182-branded updated. “Odd, they didn’t let me choose a theme,” I thought. “Hm… they didn’t tell me what new features were added either.” So I started hunting for how I could customize the UI. I enjoy skinning applications, customizing them with sounds, colours, and the like, so I was looking forward to a long list of choices.

But I didn’t find any. I didn’t even find a method of turning off the Blink-182 branding. Nothing against the band, I’m just not a big fan. After searching in both the application and online for solutions, I was becoming much less of one for both them and TweetDeck.

The Solution

Upgrades should follow a number of simple rules:

1. Tell the users what they are getting and, if possible, how long it’s going to take.




2. Enable the user to revert to the previous version in case they run into issues.




3. Provide a link to a list of issues/bugs that were resolved.




4. Provide for changing any theming or styling; allow users to customize and play.




5. If you make a mistake, as TweetDeck probably did, apologize for it.

If the recent update has you blinking mad as well, you can install this version from SoftPedia to clean things up. Thanks to @ewarwoowar86 for the link.